The stories behind the buildings, statues and other points of interest that make Manhattan fascinating.

Thursday, September 8, 2016

Engine Company 27 -- No. 173 Franklin Street

Among the volunteer fire companies that protected New
Yorkers in the first half of the 19th century was the North River
Engine Company.Like the rest of the
city’s volunteer force, the “laddies” of the fire house at No. 173 Franklin
Street were replaced in 1865.

The devastating fire that destroyed Barnum’s Museum that year along
with pressure on the State Assembly by reformers resulted in the Act of 1865
that coupled Brooklyn and New York with a paid, united “Metropolitan District”
fire department.

The North River Engine Company was replaced by Engine Company 27.The blazes battled by the professional
firefighters changed as the neighborhood did.The low houses and shops of the pre-Civil War period were replaced by loft
buildings in the last quarter of the century as the Franklin Street area became
the “dry-goods district.”

In 1879 the Fire Department appointed Napoleon Le Brun its official
architect. His firm became N. Lebrun & Son a year later when his
son Pierre joined him in business.Before the turn of the century they would be responsible
for 42 fire houses.

By now the old North River Engine Company fire house was obsolete
and on May 7, 1881 the City announced “Proposals for furnishing the materials
and doing the work of erecting Engine House at 173 Franklin street” were being
accepted.

Napoleon Le Brun & Son would famously create individual
designs for their firehouses.But when the
busy firm was simultaneously tasked with designing the new house for Engine
Company 27 and one for Engine Company 13 on Wooster Street, it simply created
carbon copy structures.

Engine Company 13 at No. 99 Wooster Street is a virtual copy.

Completed in 1882, they followed the traditional firehouse
layout.The centered bay doors sat
within the cast iron base.The two upper
floors were faced in red brick and trimmed in terra cotta and stone.Le Brun & Son’s Queen Anne design was
splashed with Neo-Grec elements, most notably the stone lintel that floated
above the second story central opening.

Engine Company 27 battled a variety of fires in the changing
neighborhood.The new multi-story loft
buildings and the old brick-faced frame structures presented two different
challenges.

Typical of the latter was the fire that broke out at No. 209
West Street early on the morning of May 30, 1902.Bernard McGuinness ran his saloon on the
ground floor, while upstairs Mrs. Mary Murphy and her family lived with two
boarders, longshoremen Richard O’Meara and Elmer Jones.

The fire seems to have broken out in Jones’s room.Two firefighters led the Murphy family out,
then Captain Doonan sent Fireman John Spencer back to find the missing
longshoremen.He was followed by John
Grimes.

The following day the New-York Tribune reported “The fireman
went into O’Meara’s room first.He found
him burned and unconscious on the bed.The whole of the top floor was on fire by this time.Spencer carried O’Meara down one flight of
stairs, where he gave the unconscious man to Grimes.Spencer returned to the top floor and, making
his way into Jones’s room, found him, too, burned and unconscious on the
bed.He carried Jones out.”

The firefighters were credited for saving the boarders’
lives.

By the time of that fire, the former dry goods district had
become the wholesale produce and pharmaceutical district.The change in the tenants in the loft
buildings brought with it a dangerous threat to the firefighters—chemicals which
gave off toxic fumes.

It was a condition that brought unspeakable tragedy to
Engine Company 27 on March 26, 1904.The
Evening World reported “Every man in engine company No. 27 was disabled in a
fire to-day which sent forth choking fumes of gas and smoke at No. 205 Duane
street.The men fell unconscious in the
burning building, and while they lay on the inside twenty other firemen, who attempted
to go to their rescue also fell insensible.”

The five-story building was home to Charles Plunkett’s broom
factory.It was the chemicals used to
make the brooms that created the lethal fumes.

By the time Engine Company 2 responded, the men of No. 27
were all inside, unconscious or dead.“As
they climbed through the smoke from the windows they were overcome and fell insensible
into the arms of their comrades, who waited on the street to catch them as they
fell.”

Only 30-year old firefighter Thomas McGirr was pulled out
alive.It was not the first time that
every man of the company was lost in their brave endeavors.The Evening World reported “Engine Company
No. 27 has been wiped out three times.McGirr is the only original member of the company, all of his old
comrades having met death in the past three years.”The newspaper added “McGirr hasn’t much
chance now, the doctors say.”

The firefighters of Engine Company 27 would have to deal
with dangerous fumes repeatedly.On July
15, 1910 fire broke out in the six-story warehouse of F. & C. Linde on Jay
Street.When firemen reached the top
floor they were met with deadly ammonia fumes.Three of them were overcome and had to be carried to the street.

Inexplicable fumes emanated from a blaze in the warehouse of
the Phoenix Cheese Company at No. 345 Greenwich Street on July 18, 1921.The fire burned nearly all day and the “evil
smelling fumes” overtook 50 firemen.The
New-York Tribune reported the following day that “One fireman may die, two
others are in serious condition in St. Vincent’s Hospital.”All three were members of Engine Company
27.Ironically, John Flynn, who was not
expected to survive, had been gassed during his service in World War I.

Much less dangerous were the fume that gushed forth from the
blazed that demolished the five-story spice and coffee warehouse at Nos. 64-66
North Moore Street a year later, on June 17.While the men of Engine Company 27 battled the blaze, tenants in nearby
buildings fled the area, driven away by the sickening odor.The Evening World reported “Smoke from
burning spices, more than danger, drove about 200 persons to the streets at 5
A. M. to-day.”

In 1952 Mayor Vincent R.
Impellitteri sought to cut costs by eliminating unnecessary City-owned
properties.Consultants were appointed
to the Mayor’s Committee on Management Survey.Among the structures “named for abandonment” was Engine Company 27’s
Franklin Street firehouse.Fire
Commissioner Jacob Grumet was not prepared to blindly accept the
recommendations.On August 5 he inspected
the firehouse, seeking to determine the distances other houses would have to
travel to cover the fires now handled by Engine Company 27.

Grumet declined to tell
reporters how he felt about the proposed elimination of companies; simply
saying there would be “much discussion” before any final move was made.The Commissioner obviously swayed the
Committee.Engine Company 27 operated
from No. 173 for another two decades; until it was decommissioned in 1975.Before the last firefighter left the
building, one of them had written across the red truck door “Born 1850-Closed
11-22-75.”

For a while the old firehouse
was used as a welding shop before sitting vacant and neglected in the last
decade of the 20th century.But Tribeca by then was experiencing its renaissance.In 2002 a gallery was operating from the
ground floor while the upper stories were converted to a single family home.